Escapist's Shamus Young writes:
Three months ago I looked at Stadia, Google’s upcoming streaming platform. At the time I was pretty skeptical that it was going to work. OnLive offered a similar service back in 2010, and it closed down after just four years. Despite this, I was hesitant to predict failure for Stadia. Digital infrastructure has come a long way in the last six years, and Google is a powerful company with a lot of impressive technology. I thought it was possible that Google might succeed where OnLive had failed. But this week I read their pricing plan, and I feel a lot more comfortable saying that this whole thing seems like a bad idea.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
Today, Koei Tecmo announced its financial results for the full fiscal year 2025, related to the period between April 2025 and March 2026.
Very coherent and logical line of thought from the author. Google is asking too much from us, for what is effectively a leap of faith. Their current pricing sucks and it needs to be slashed, significantly, if they ever hope of staying alive, let alone compete. Even then issues like ISP reliability, capability, lag, throttling, caps etc are another matter entirely.
I mean what is the point of a paid streaming service when you're still paying separately for the games, at full price no less? Where's the contingency plan if Stadia goes bust? Do we lose everything?
So who is Stadia for? I'll leave it to the author's last words to answer:
"It’s supposedly for people who want to play AAA games but don’t have access to AAA hardware. It’s for people who are into hardcore games but don’t mind an unavoidable baseline of input lag. It’s for people who can’t afford a $400 console but can afford to buy games at full price and pay an additional $120 every single year. It’s for people who have lots of devices who somehow don’t own any dedicated gaming hardware. Most of all, it’s for people who have no memory of OnLive’s failure or who are happy to buy games that will vanish into the ether if the exact same idea fails again.
Stadia is for casual gamers who are into hardcore titles and poor people with lots of disposable income. This is a service for nobody, and it makes no sense."
WOW, I have NEVER seen such unbridled and unwarranted hate for something like I have seen for Stadia. I am an absolute believer in Stadia. The only people against Stadia are the same people who still live in the past and buy physical copy of games to collect and hoard them but never actually play them.
People fail to see the big picture. In a year or two when 5G is the new mobile standard, you will literally be able to play TRUE AAA blockbusters on your phone literally ANYWHERE you are. Think of this as the Switch on super steroids. NO downgrade graphics or resolution, we are talking a full console experience and performance on your phone., or your tablet, or on a desktop PC or on your TV
OH and did I also mention NOMORE WAITING FOR INSTALLS, UPDATES or DOWNLOADS. Cant think of anything worse when you lay down on the couch to power up a game you havent played in a while, only to have to have wait, and wait and wait some more for an update.
I have Stadia pre ordered and there is no doubt it will be a success. Look at the Switch, its a huge success for a reason. Also, look at the absolute stellar launch line up for Stadia, it has the best launch line up of any console in history and thats a fact.
Pay for the subscription and then pay for the games??? No Thanks.
I pay for PS+ and if stadia does offer exclusives that offer better physics, bigger world and better experiences I'm ok with that but it's all an experiment I think so I'm still in wait and see mode.
Pricing yes, that is one. The other is that ownership of games are completely taken away from people. And lastly, most of the planet does not have fast enough internet for this thing and will not have fast enough internet for a very long time to come.
Only casual hipsters are interested in this who don't care about gaming what so ever and don't care how they ruin this hobby for the rest of us real gamers.